[Illustration: FIG. 276. Web of Steatoda borealis on the face of a
conglomerate rock in the cavity from which a pebble has dropped out.
Half the real size.]
Steatoda has the legs shorter and stouter than Theridium. The abdomen is
oval and often a little flattened on the back. It is smooth and shining,
the hairs being fine and scattered so as to be hardly visible. The
thorax is thick and hard, and in some species marked with hard
projections and depressions. The head is generally narrow, and the front
middle eyes are in several species larger than the others and farther
forward and wider apart. In other species all the eyes are about the
same size. The webs consist of a flat sheet supported and held down by
threads.
[Illustration: FIGS. 277, 278, 279. Steatoda borealis.--277, female.
278, male. Both enlarged four times. 279, eyes.]
$Steatoda borealis.$--This is a dark reddish-brown spider, quarter of an
inch long, living among stones or in the corners of fences and window
frames, generally well concealed by its web or nest. The cephalothorax
is orange brown and covered with short stiff brown hairs. The head is
one-third as wide as the thorax and a little higher, the eyes near
together, with the front middle pair projecting forward beyond the
mandibles (fig. 279). The legs are brown, with faint darker rings, and
are thickly covered with hairs. The abdomen is dark chocolate brown,
sometimes without any light marks on the upper side, but usually there
is a light line running around the front half and another in the middle,
extending back half the length of the abdomen and usually broken into
several spots. The four depressed spots on the abdomen are distinctly
marked. On the under side there is a light stripe on each side, meeting
behind the spinnerets. The sexes are much alike in size and color, but
the palpi of the male (fig. 278) are longer than the cephalothorax, and
the terminal joint is very large and complicated. The web consists of a
flat sheet, held out by threads in all directions, but is often so
crowded into a corner that its structure is hard to understand (fig.
276).
[Illustration: FIGS. 280, 281. Steatoda guttata.--280, female enlarged
eight times. 281, head and eyes.]
$Steatoda guttata.$--Only one-tenth of an inch long. The cephalothorax
is high, with scattered hairs, at the base of each of which is a horny
ridge. The cephalothorax is dark brown, with the legs lighter and more
yellow. The abdomen is nearly spherical and hard at the front end, where
there is a ring around its attachment to the thorax. Sometimes the
abdomen is bright yellow or orange, without markings on the back, but
oftener it is partly brown, with two or three pairs of silvery white
spots (fig. 280). The males and females are alike in size and color, and
the palpi of the males are very large, as in _borealis_. They live under
stones at all seasons and mature in April and May.
[Illustration: FIGS. 282, 283, 284. Steatoda marmorata.--282, 283,
markings of the abdomen of the female enlarged twice. 284, head of the
male.]
$Steatoda marmorata.$--About a quarter of an inch long. The
cephalothorax and legs yellowish brown. Cephalothorax smooth, with a few
hairs. Legs covered with fine hair. The abdomen is usually nearly
covered by an oblong dark spot darkened at the edges, where it is
bordered by silvery white (fig. 283). The middle is lighter, with a
central dark stripe. In some individuals the dark markings are broken up
into four pairs of black spots partly connected with a middle line
(fig. 282). The head is wider and the eyes smaller and farther apart
than in the other species, and the front middle eyes are the smallest.
The head is wider in males (fig. 284) than in females, and the mandibles
larger. It lives under stones and leaves at all seasons and occasionally
on bushes.
[Illustration: FIG. 285. Steatoda corollata.--Back of a small female
enlarged four times.]
$Steatoda corollata.$--This, when full grown, is a little larger than
_marmorata_ and darker colored, and the legs are shorter and stouter.
The cephalothorax is dark brown, and the legs lighter brown, with dark
rings at the ends of the joints. The abdomen is yellowish at the sides
and has four or five irregular yellow spots, or pairs of spots, along
the middle of a dark brown oval patch which nearly covers the middle of
the back. In young specimens the abdomen is lighter, with several pairs
of dark spots. The eyes are all nearly the same size, the front middle
pair slightly larger and farther forward than the others. It lives under
stones, like the other species.
[Illustration: FIG. 286. Steatoda triangulosa.--Back of female enlarged
four times.]
$Steatoda triangulosa.$--The female is a fifth of an inch to a quarter
of an inch long. The legs are longer and more slender than in the other
species, the first pair twice as long as the body. The cephalothorax is
orange brown, slightly rough in females and with short ridges at the
base of the hairs in males. The front middle eyes are not larger than
the others and are not as far forward as in _borealis_. The legs are
light yellow, with slightly darker rings at the ends of the joints.
There are thickened brown spots at the base of the hairs all over the
body. The abdomen is light yellow, with two irregular brown stripes
partly broken into spots and sometimes connected together (fig. 286).
The palpi of the male are as long as the femur of the second legs and
are small at the end. This spider lives in houses, around window frames
and similar places, like _borealis_. The egg cocoons are white and hang
in the web.
[Illustration: FIG. 287. Asagena americana.--Back of female enlarged
eight times.]
$Asagena americana.$--This resembles Steatoda, but the abdomen is longer
and flatter, and the whole appearance more like some of the Drassidæ.
Like Steatoda, it is usually found with its web under stones. It is
about a sixth of an inch long. The cephalothorax is dark reddish brown,
slightly rough in the females and with sharp points along the sides in
the males. The legs are yellow brown and in the males have two rows of
small teeth under each femur. They are stout, as in _Steatoda
marmorata_, and differ little in length. The abdomen is oval and dark
brown in color, with two white spots across the middle (fig. 287). The
front of the head is rounded and a third as wide as the thorax. The eyes
are close together and all about the same size. The males have the
cephalothorax larger and rougher, but in size and color resemble the
females.
[Illustration: FIGS. 288, 289, 290, 291. Latrodectus mactans.--288,
female enlarged twice. 289, under side of abdomen. 290, back of abdomen
of young female, with four red spots. 291, markings of abdomen of male.]
$Latrodectus mactans.$--This is the largest spider of the family. It is
sometimes half an inch long, with the abdomen round and the whole body
black, except a bright red spot underneath and one or more red spots
over the spinnerets and along the middle of the back (figs. 289, 290).
The spots turn yellow or white in alcohol. The cephalothorax is about as
wide as long, and the grooves between the head and thorax are deep. The
lateral eyes are farther apart than usual in this family. The legs of
the male are much larger than those of the female, and each joint is
orange brown in the middle and black at the ends. The abdomen of the
male has a row of red and white spots in the middle line, as some
females do, and across the front end, and along the sides four pairs of
stripes, red in the middle and white at the edges (fig. 291). The young
of both sexes are colored somewhat like the male and, when very small,
have very little black on them. The males vary much in size, some being
only a quarter as large as the female. This spider makes its nest among
loose stones, on plants, or in houses. Around its hiding place it spins
a large funnel-shaped tent that widens into a flat or curved sheet of
web, closer in texture toward the tube and more open toward the edges,
spreading two or three feet over plants and stones. It is found all over
the United States, as far north as Massachusetts and New Hampshire and
south through Florida, the West Indies, and South America, as far as
Chile. It is everywhere feared as poisonous and dangerous, probably on
account of its large size and conspicuous colors, as there is no good
reason for considering it more poisonous than other spiders.
[Illustration: FIGS. 292, 293, 294, 295. Argyrodes trigonum.--292, side
of female enlarged eight times, the dotted line showing the abdomen bent
downward. 293, tip of abdomen seen from above. 294, top of
cephalothorax. 295, cephalothorax of male.]
[Illustration: FIG. 296. Web of Argyrodes trigonum between two maple
leaves. In the middle of the web are two egg cocoons and above them the
spider.]
$Argyrodes trigonum.$--A little yellow triangular spider, with a high,
pointed abdomen (fig. 292). Large females measure an eighth of an inch
from the head to the spinnerets and nearly as much from the spinnerets
to the tip of the abdomen. Seen from above, the end of the abdomen is a
little flattened and notched in the middle (fig. 293). In the female the
part of the head around the eyes is slightly raised and the lower part
of the front of the head carried forward a little beyond it (fig. 294).
In the males there are two horns on the head, one between the eyes and
one below them (fig. 295). The color is light yellow, sometimes with a
metallic luster, as though gilded. On the back of the cephalothorax are
three light brown stripes, and sometimes there are dark spots at the
sides of the abdomen and over the spinnerets. The legs are slender,
without markings, the front pair longer than the others. The point of
the abdomen is movable and is sometimes curved downward when the spider
is disturbed in the web, as shown by the dotted line in fig. 292. They
make webs like those of Theridium, between branches of shrubs (fig. 296)
and also among the upper threads of the webs of larger spiders. They
have been found in the webs of Agalena, Theridium, and Linyphia, in the
looser parts, out of reach of the maker of the web. Hanging in the web,
they look like straws or the scales of pine buds that have fallen into
it. The cocoons of eggs hang in the web and have a peculiar shape (fig.
296), the upper part conical and the lower part contracted into a narrow
neck. The species is common in New England and is found all over the
country as far south as Florida.
[Illustration: FIGS. 297, 298, 299. Argyrodes nephilæ.--297, female.
298, male. Both enlarged eight times. 299, head of male.]
$Argyrodes nephilæ.$--This is about as large as _Argyrodes trigonum_,
with the hump silver white and the under side of the body black or dark
brown (fig. 297). The hump ends in a blunt round point. The front of the
head is more nearly vertical than in _trigonum_, and the upper part
projects forward, carrying with it the front middle eyes. In the male
there are two horns in front of the eyes, the upper one carrying the
middle eyes of both rows (fig. 299). The cephalothorax is black or dark
brown above and below. The abdomen is black on the under side, including
the spinnerets, and there is a black middle stripe extending back to the
tip of the hump. The basal joints of all the legs are white. The third
and fourth legs are light colored, with a little brown at the ends of
the joints. The second legs are darker, and the first pair are almost
black, except at the ends. The males are colored like the females, but
have the abdomen not much larger than the cephalothorax (fig. 298), and
the hump rounded. This is a southern species and is said to live among
the outer threads of webs of large Epeiridæ. It does, however, make webs
of its own, and I have seen the adults of both sexes at Charleston,
S.C., in these webs away from any other spiders.
[Illustration: FIGS. 300, 301. Argyrodes fictilium.--300, female
enlarged eight times. 301, top of the cephalothorax.]
$Argyrodes fictilium.$--In this species the pointed hump on the abdomen
is much more elongated than in _trigonum_, in some spiders to eight or
nine times the length of the cephalothorax (fig. 300). The tip is
rounded in young specimens and sharp pointed in the larger ones. The
front of the head is more inclined than that of _trigonum_ (fig. 301).
The colors are light yellow and silvery white, with three darker lines
on the cephalothorax and a faint middle line on the abdomen. The legs
are very slender and long in proportion to the long abdomen. Found
rarely from New England to Alabama.
[Illustration: FIG. 302. Spintharus flavidus, enlarged four times.]
$Spintharus flavidus.$--A sixth to a quarter of an inch long. The
cephalothorax is nearly circular, and the head small and narrow like
that of Argyrodes, with the hinder middle eyes very far apart. The
abdomen is widest across the front third, where it is two thirds as wide
as it is long, and from here it tapers to a blunt point over the
spinnerets (fig. 302). On the back the abdomen is flat and marked with
white stripes each side, and between them a large pattern in black and
red, lighter toward the middle, where there are two or three pairs of
white spots. The legs are slender like those of Argyrodes, the first and
fourth pairs the same length and twice as long as the second pair. The
tibiæ of the first and second legs are bright orange color, and the
rest, like the cephalothorax, pale yellow. The male has longer legs and
more slender abdomen. They live on low plants, and the web is unknown.
They have been found from Massachusetts to Alabama.
[Illustration: FIG. 303. Euryopis funebris, enlarged four times.]
$Euryopis funebris.$--A little dark-colored spider, with a flat abdomen
pointed behind and bordered with a silver-white stripe. It is almost an
eighth of an inch long. The cephalothorax is small and as wide as it is
long, with the sides rounded. The head is half as wide as the thorax, a
little raised and extended forward over the mandibles (fig. 303). The
front middle eyes are largest and are farther apart and farther forward
than the others. The abdomen is flat and nearly as wide in the middle
as it is long, and tapers to a point behind. The general color is black
or dark gray. The cephalothorax is yellowish under the abdomen and black
in front. The abdomen has a bright silvery stripe around the hinder
half, and inside this the color is black, broken by light spots in the
middle. The legs and palpi are light yellow, with dark rings on the ends
of the joints. The fourth legs are longest. It is shaken from bushes in
summer, or from dead leaves on the ground in winter, and its web is
unknown. It is found from the White Mountains to Alabama.
[Illustration: FIG. 304. Theridula sphærula, enlarged four times.]
$Theridula sphærula.$--This is a very distinct and easily recognized
species, although it is less than a tenth of an inch long (fig. 304).
The cephalothorax is yellow, with a wide black stripe in the middle. The
abdomen is high and round and wider than it is long; it is yellowish
gray, with a greenish white spot in the middle and a black spot on a
slight elevation at each side. There is also a black spot around the
spinnerets. The legs are light yellow. In the male the light parts of
the cephalothorax and legs are orange color, and the markings of the
abdomen less distinct than in the female. It lives on bushes all over
the country.
[Illustration: FIG. 305. Pholcus phalangioides.--A young female in a
natural position hanging in its web.]
[Illustration: FIGS. 306, 307. Pholcus phalangioides.--306, female and
male natural size, and cephalothorax of female much enlarged. 307,
mandibles of male.]
[Illustration: FIG. 308. Web of Pholcus phalangioides between two
shelves in a cellar.]
$Pholcus phalangioides.$--This is a large pale spider, with legs so long
that it is often confounded with Phalangium, under the nickname of
"daddy longlegs." The body is quarter of an inch long, and the longest
legs two inches. The abdomen is about three times as long as wide and
nearly straight at the sides unless full of eggs. The cephalothorax is
nearly round and flat behind. Around the eyes the head is raised and in
the males separated at the sides from the rest of the head. The middle
pair of eyes are not higher than the tops of the lower lateral eyes. The
mandibles are nearly as high as the front of the head, and in the males
they have a small conical tooth near the base. The color is pale brown,
covered with fine gray hairs, and the whole body and legs are
translucent. The head is a little darker around the eyes, and there is a
large gray patch in the middle of the cephalothorax. The abdomen is
marked only by a translucent middle line over the dorsal vessel. This is
a house spider, common in America and Europe, and probably imported. It
lives in cellars where there is but little light and makes large, loose,
flat webs, horizontal where there is a convenient place, or irregular to
fit into surrounding objects (fig. 308). The spider hangs in the web
with the abdomen directed upward, and when alarmed swings itself around
rapidly so that it can hardly be seen. The egg cocoon is so thin that it
does not conceal the eggs and is carried about in the spider's mandibles
until the young hatch out.
[Illustration: FIGS. 309, 310, 311. Pholcus cornutus.--309, side of
female enlarged four times. 310, back of female. 311, front of mandibles
of male, showing the curved horns.]
$Pholcus cornutus.$--A small species from the southern states, with a
body about a tenth of an inch long and the legs from half to
three-quarters of an inch. The abdomen is humped on the back and short
on the under side, so that seen from the side it is nearly triangular
(fig. 309). The cephalothorax is as wide as long and nearly circular.
The head is small and marked by a shallow groove on each side. In front
it is higher than wide and inclined a little forward toward the
mandibles. The eyes (fig. 310) are raised a little from the head, three
large eyes almost touching each other in a group on each side, and a
small pair between them just above the lower eyes of the larger groups.
The mandibles are three-quarters as high as the head, with a small tooth
on the inner corners and, in the males, a long curved horn projecting
forward near the base of each mandible (fig. 311). The legs are very
slender and transparent, slightly colored brown, with darker rings at
the ends of the femur and tibia. There is a dark mark around the eyes
and head, forming behind them a middle line that widens toward the
hinder end of the cephalothorax. The abdomen is gray, marked on the
upper side with three or four pairs of darker spots and behind with
lighter spots, somewhat like _Theridium tepidariorum_.
[Illustration: FIGS. 312, 313. Scytodes thoracica.--312, female enlarged
eight times. 313, Side of cephalothorax.]
$Scytodes thoracica.$--This is a very peculiar spider, probably imported
from Europe, and found in cellars and closets. It is about quarter of an
inch long when full grown. The cephalothorax and abdomen are both round
and nearly of the same size. The cephalothorax is low and narrow in
front and slopes upward to the highest point opposite the third legs
(fig. 313), and from there falls abruptly behind. The eyes are six in
number, in three pairs, the middle pair lowest and the lateral pairs
wide apart at the sides of the head (fig. 312). The front of the head
below the eyes projects forward beyond the mandibles. The legs are
slender and tapering, the tarsus and metatarsus not more than half as
thick as the tibia. The color is pale yellow or white, with black or
gray spots, in a regular pattern on the cephalothorax and abdomen, and
in rings on the legs.
[Illustration: FIGS. 314, 315. Mimetus interfector, enlarged four times,
showing markings of two different individuals.]
$Mimetus interfector.$--This is about the same size and color as
_Theridium tepidariorum_, but it has a round and Epeira-like abdomen and
spiny legs like Epeira or Linyphia. The length is nearly a quarter of an
inch. The cephalothorax is one and a half times as long as wide, widest
behind and narrow in front (fig. 314). The mandibles are long and dark
colored, except a spot near the base. The cephalothorax is whitish, with
a stripe of brown from the eyes to the dorsal groove. The abdomen is
small, widest in front, like that of _Epeira angulata_, with two
prominent corners. The markings are also like Epeira,--a central stripe,
with dark spots along the edges (figs. 314, 315). The color is gray and
brown in the darker parts. The legs are light yellow, with dark rings at
the ends of the joints. It lives on bushes and occasionally on houses
and fences, where it has been found in webs among those of _Theridium
tepidariorum_.
[Illustration: FIGS. 316, 317. Ero thoracica.--316, back of female
enlarged eight times. 317, side of female.]
$Ero thoracica.$--This spider resembles the young of _Theridium
tepidariorum_, but the colors are brighter, and the hairs longer and
coarser. It is an eighth to a sixth of an inch long. The cephalothorax
is nearly as high in the middle as it is long and slopes at a sharp
angle under the front of the abdomen (fig. 317). The head is lower than
the middle of the thorax, and the front middle eyes project beyond the
mandibles. The abdomen is as high as long and has a pair of humps on the
highest part. The cephalothorax is light yellow, with a dark irregular
stripe on each side and a middle line crossed by a crescent-shaped mark
on the highest part. The abdomen is white, with brown spots of various
shapes. The front half of each hump is dark brown, and a dark line
extends from there down the sides (fig. 316). At the back of the abdomen
are several transverse stripes, which are sometimes reddish. Stiff brown
hairs are scattered all over the abdomen. The legs are ringed with brown
and yellow, and have coarse brown hairs and long spines on the tibia and
tarsus, which is unusual in this family. It is found under stones and in
winter under leaves in woods. It lives also in Europe.